


Observations

by CatelynStark956



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:01:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29753748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatelynStark956/pseuds/CatelynStark956
Summary: Cersei sees some intimate moments between Ned and Cat during the royal visit to Winterfell and her feelings are all over the place
Relationships: Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark
Comments: 11
Kudos: 13





	Observations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leiareads](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiareads/gifts).



> This one is a bit different from what I usually write since it's almost completely from Cersei's POV and therefore not entirely NedCat focused, but I hope you like it!

Catelyn leaned towards him when Ned sat next to her. 

“Cersei Lannister considers me ugly” she said. 

How could anyone find his wife ugly? Catelyn was the most beautiful woman Ned had ever seen. Her hair and her eyes, her charming smile and the grace with which she moved. The rest of the men in the hall had been gawking at Cersei Lannister all evening, with her fancy southern dress and hairdo, but Catelyn had a natural beauty that he didn’t believe even the queen could match.

“Jaime Lannister considers me old and stupid” he said.

Ned didn’t like the smirk that was always on Jaime’s face. He could not see the man anywhere in the hall at the moment and that was a relief. There was just something about Lannisters that irked him. And Jaime Lannister especially. It reminded him of when he had found Mad Aerys dead and Jaime on the throne, something he would much rather forget.

“We make quite the match” Catelyn chuckled. 

They needed not assure each other of anything. Both of them were well aware of that you shouldn’t trust anything a Lannister says. 

“We do, don’t we?”

She lifted her cup and he did the same. He loved the smile on her face. That smile that he usually only saw when they were alone. After feasts and gatherings when she put Lady Stark aside and instead told him exactly what she thought.

“To being ugly, old and stupid” Catelyn said dryly. 

Ned laughed, then repeated her words and both of them drank. She was already in her cups, he could tell by the very lovely blush that covered her cheeks. But it was not enough for it to be noticeable in any other way if you didn’t know her well. 

She leaned even closer to him and lowered her voice to a whisper.

“She looks at me like she wants me dead.”

“Who?” Ned asked, very confused about whoever wanted his lady wife dead. 

“The queen.”

~*~

They truly were disgusting. Cersei couldn’t find a better word for it. Ever since they arrived at Winterfell she had seen the looks they shared with each other. The little smiles and gentle touches. A hand on an arm, a hand on a shoulder, a hand at the lower back. Even kisses. A kiss on a forehead, a kiss on a cheek, a kiss on the lips. They certainly were not afraid of showing their affection for each other. In ways that were not appropriate. 

Cersei found herself watching them multiple times during the feast. It was in a way fascinating. Seeing them lock eyes with each other from across the room and share a smile before going back to their conversations. Despite the crowded hall they always managed to find one another.

She saw how Lord Stark walked over and sat next to his wife. She immediately leaned towards him and said something. He seemed to consider for a moment before answering. Whatever he said brought a smile to Lady Stark’s face. After another exchange of words both of them raised their cups and made a toast to something that made both of them laugh. And during all of it that spark was in their eyes. Like they were young, experiencing their first love. It was ridiculous. 

For just a moment Catelyn Stark glanced over her husband’s shoulder and met Cersei’s eyes. It only lasted a second, then Stark was urgently whispering to her husband. 

“Why do you find Catelyn Stark to interesting, dear sister?”

She looked at her little brother. Tyrion had stayed out of the way most of the time, she didn’t even know when she had last seen him. But there he was. He had a way of just showing up from nowhere. 

“I don’t.”

“I don’t believe that. Why are you staring?”

She didn’t answer. Mostly because she didn’t know. Why was she staring? What about Catelyn Stark and her piece of ice for a husband was it that interested her? Both of them were deadly dull. Quiet, solemn Eddard Stark and uptight Catelyn Tully. One could see in their eyes that they considered themselves better and much more honorable than everyone else. 

“She was a lot prettier when she was younger” was what she ended up saying.

It was true. At least mostly. But still her husband looked at her like she was some great beauty. Perhaps he felt obligated to do so. Yes, that had to be it. 

“But she’s still pretty, isn’t she? One might even say beautiful. Hair like that is hard to find. And I think Lord Stark is aware.”

She was nowhere near as beautiful as Cersei was. Had never been. Her husband was even plainer. And still you wouldn’t be able to tell that from how they watched each other. 

“He’s in his cups.”

“Ah, but from what I have heard they are like this always.”

“And who did you hear that from?”

“People talk. Whores, most of all. It is said that Lord Stark never leaves his wife’s bed.”

No one to be trusted, in other words.

“I find that hard to believe.”

No man would be satisfied by such a proper lady as Catelyn Stark. Surely she would never agree to anything but lying back and staring up at the ceiling. But maybe that was all Eddard Stark needed. It did seem reasonable. Perhaps he, like Stannis, saw lying with a woman as nothing but a duty. But then Catelyn Tully was at least prettier than Selyse Florent and surely more enjoyable. 

“And why is that?” Tyrion asked. “You see, some people are not unhappy in their marriages.”

“She’s too boring to keep a man in her bed. It’s easy to tell.”

“Have you never heard what is said about women with red hair? And what is said about Tullys?”

She had heard enough. Robert had always preferred red headed whores and he had never been shy about telling her about it. Even better if they came from the Riverlands. Cersei had a sneaking suspicion of that maybe all that was more related to Catelyn Tully than she would have liked. Of course he had said to her a few times that he would have much preferred to marry Catelyn instead, but she had not put too much thought into that. He had been angry and drunk, she never thought too much about what he said in those moments. 

“And Lady Stark whelps every other year. Who do you think got all those pups on her?”

“Only one has the Stark look. For all we know it could have been anyone.”

She let her husband have his bastard among her children, but she looked at the boy with bitterness and had made sure he was out of the way during the feast. And Cersei wouldn’t be surprised at all if it turned out that one or more of the little Starks weren’t wolves at all. She even understood it. 

“I don’t think Lady Stark would have time to be unfaithful considering how much attention her husband pays to her.”

“And do you think she enjoys it?” she asked.

Cersei certainly didn’t believe so. No, both of them were too proud and dutiful to let themselves to submit to something so unrefined as pleasure and lust. And Eddard Stark had no passion in him at all. He was without emotion, he had ice water in his veins instead of blood. Duty, that was all. 

“The servants say that if you happen to walk past Lady Stark’s door at night you are sure to hear her.”

Tyrion raised his eyebrows suggestively and that was when she decided that she had had enough. She didn’t want to talk to him anymore. And she didn’t want to spend more time thinking of Lord and Lady Stark and their really annoying marriage. She needed to find some decent company. 

And despite that she couldn’t help taking the longer way back to the chambers she had been given after having made sure that Myrcella and Tommen were sleeping. The way that just happened to pass by Lady Stark’s chambers. A complete coincidence, of course. She was not in the least curious. She had simply taken a wrong turn, lost her way. Winterfell was large, and confusing. She has only been there a short while and she already hated it. 

But maybe, just maybe, her curiosity was sparked when she walked down the corridors and heard a very breathless laugh cut off by a sharp moan. She had been forced to listen to Catelyn Stark’s tedious voice enough for her to immediately recognize it. 

A small fragment of light spilled out into the darkness from a door that was not properly closed and Cersei slowly moved towards it. If anyone was to see her there she would have to have their tongue cut out to keep them from speaking about it. 

She had known what she would see, she was no halfwit, but it was different than what she had expected. She really wasn’t supposed to look, but still there was something that kept her from continuing back to her chamber.

Catelyn Stark sat in a chair in front of the hearth of the room and her husband kneeled before her. Kneeled. What sort of husband kneeled before his wife? Not Robert, that was a thing to be sure of. Lord Stark on the other hand, kneeled. Kneeled beneath his wife’s skirts. While the wife in question sat leaned back in her chair, her eyes closed and her lips parted. Her breathing came rapidly in between moans and soft sighs. 

And Cersei had never hated a person more than she hated her in that moment. Happy. The damn woman looked happy. And that was no wonder when her husband took such careful attention to her pleasure in an act that brought him no pleasure at all. And that would in no way get her with child. He did it just for her. Her husband. Not some lover, her husband. Not that Jaime would have done that anyway, no, despite being a lover and not a husband he was too proud for pleasuring a woman with his mouth. Catelyn Stark needed not stray, she had everything she needed in her marriage bed.

Tully opened her eyes and Cersei drew away from the door a bit so that she was more covered by the shadows, but the other woman only looked down at her husband while she lifted a hand and ran it through his hair. And it was that thing that truly disgusted Cersei. How even in the heat of passion, even when he had his tongue between her legs, Lady Stark looked at her husband fondly, lovingly and touched him ever so gently. Not for a moment one could be spared from it.

She really had seen enough, she didn’t have to see more and she didn’t want to more. But still it was like she was frozen to the spot. The bloody castle was doing it to her, it was too cold. 

Suddenly Tully shuddered and a cry escaped her lips as she found her release. Shameless, like some wench you could find in a brothel, she called out her husband’s name. The difference was that her cry was honest and not an act, she needed not pretend because she wasn’t obligated to. She wasn’t paid for it. Cersei could feel the hatred grow in her with each passing second. 

“That was much needed” she smiled when she collapsed against the backrest of the chair. 

The sated bliss on Tully’s face was infuriating. Cersei wanted to hurt her just seeing it. She had been satisfied when she needed it. She didn’t endure coupling with her husband, she enjoyed it and desired it. Small wonder when he did that sort of things for her.

“I suspected so” her husband chuckled and got up from the floor.

Lord Stark offered his lady a hand and pulled her up from the chair. He pressed a kiss to her forehead when she stood and she leaned against him. Despite being Lord and Lady Stark it was very much not a moment between a lord and his lady, it was a moment between a husband and a wife. 

Ugh, disgusting. Cersei was just about to leave, to return to her own bed and try to sleep and forget what she had seen, she really wanted to forget, when she heard Tully’s next words. 

“Entertaining the royal family is tedious business” she said. 

“At least the Lannister side of it.”

“They are all quite unpleasant.”

And for a moment Cersei almost said something, but that would certainly raise some questions about what she had been doing there so she bit her tongue and kept quiet. If she raised awareness to it they could be punished. They should have been punished for speaking about her and her family like that. But Robert would never let anyone touch Stark and his bitch. She hated them all. 

Lady Stark left her husband and walked over to the looking glass that was standing in a corner. She seemed to consider a moment before frowning. 

“You have made a mess of me.”

It was quite true.

“There is no one here but us, you need not concern yourself with how you look” he said. “But I think you are beautiful. Especially now.”

“There’s no need for flattering me, my love, you have me already” she smiled. “Help me unlace so we can get to the point, will you?”

He came to stand behind her. They had their backs to her, but Cersei could see their reflection in the looking glass. Catelyn was watching her husband intently as he began to work with the lacing at the back of her gown. He kept his hands where they were supposed to be. The lord and the lady were definitely not sober and still no drunken groping occurred despite Lady Stark’s promise. And he had not been angry with her for telling him to help her unlace. No wonder she seemed so completely unafraid of him, he was no wolf with her, he was a pup. She could jape with him without having to fear anything. Had Cersei even politely asked Robert to help her out of her gown he would have threatened her with violence. Not that she wanted him to help or touch her at all, his hands on her disgusted her. With Jaime she rarely undressed, they didn’t have time for it.

Only when he needed to push his wife’s gown down over her shoulders did Stark let his hands leave her back. He very gently swept her hair out of the way and when he did so he also leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. 

“I love you.”

“And I you.”

Could it get more nauseatingly sweet? She didn’t think so. But at least she could not fault them for it that time. As far as they knew they were in private. 

Ned Stark whispered something against his wife’s neck that Cersei couldn’t hear, but that seemed to appeal to Catelyn Stark.

“Touch me. Feel how much I want you.”

Any septa would have died on the spot had she heard those words coming from a highborn lady’s mouth.

Just then Cersei realized that the looking glass was positioned so that the door was visible from it. And that she was as well. And just in that moment Catelyn’s gaze moved away from her husband’s reflection.

Cersei quickly backed away and fled down the hall. She tried to be as quick and quiet as she could. Once she was around a corner she stopped and held her breath.

“Cat, what is it?” she heard Lord Stark ask.

“The door wasn’t closed and I almost could have sworn that I saw someone. But I must have imagined it. It’s either that or the keep is haunted.”

Cersei heard the door close and she breathed a sigh of relief. What was she even doing? Spying on the Warden of the North and his wife in the middle of the night. She was the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, what was she doing sneaking around the castle like some peasant that wasn’t allowed to be there? She was higher than that and better than both Lord and Lady Stark. 

She wondered what Jaime would have thought about it. He probably would have laughed and come up with some clever jape. He was good at that, her twin. Maybe she could tell him. Not all of it, of course. But she could say that she had happened to walk past Lady Stark’s chambers. It had not been his turn to stand guard outside Robert’s chambers, he would most likely be in his own rooms. She could go to him. Yes, that she would do.


End file.
